How to lock a Mac OS X workstation

Reader Adam Smith writes in with the following question: “I am a new Mac user, and I love OSX! I have a MacBook Pro 15”. I would like to know though, is there a way that you can lock a MAC? Like in Windows, you can hit the shortcut “Windows Key + L”. Is there something similar in Mac or is there a script you can write? It’s just so I can leave my Mac while its doing stuff, lock it, so that no one else can play around with it. Thank you for your time.”

Yes there is a way to lock a Mac! Mac OS X doesn’t have an active workstation lock quite in the same manner as Windows, but you can still lock your Mac’s workstation and require a password for all users to access the machine. Here’s how to set this up:

Lock an active Mac OS X workstation

The easiest way to lock down your Mac is by using a screen saver and password protecting it. Here’s how in three easy steps:

Select a Screen Saver – First, you’ll need to select a screen saver to activate. Open System Preferences and click the “Desktop & Screen Saver” icon. Pick any screen saver.

Enable a Hot Corner – In the same preference pane, click on the “Hot Corners…” button in the bottom corner of the pane. Select a “Hot Corner” – where you want the screen saver to be activated by dragging your cursor into that corner

Enable Password Protection – Now you’ll need to password protect your screen saver. Navigate back to System Preferences and this time select the “Security” icon. Ignore all the FileVault settings, about halfway in the pane there is a check box for “Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver” – click the box next to it so a check appears.

Try it out – Now anytime you drag your mouse cursor into the activated Hot Corner, you will activate the screen saver, which requires a password to return to the desktop. Also, if your machine is put to sleep it will bring about the same password prompt.

To further secure your Mac workstation, you can also require a password on system boot. Doing so is easy, just check the Login Options under the Accounts preference pane. It’s pretty self explanatory but if anyone wants a full walkthrough let us know.

43 Comments

I remember it was easy to do this in system 9 but I never could figure out how to do it in Mac OS X. It seems like Apple unintentionally hid the option in the Security preferences rather than putting it in the ScreenSaver where it would be more appropriate.

You can also use Fast User Switching, which allows multiple users to be logged in via the GUI at the same time. I use this to “lock” my login – allowing others to use the computer, while my state is preserved and my background computing tasks continue cranking. I prefer it to a locking screen saver in situations where a machine might be shared.

To “Lock” the system:
Click on your name on the right side of the menu bar,
and select “Login Window…”

To “Unlock” the system:
If the system is still at “Login Window”, just log in as yourself.
GUI access to your workspace will be restored
If another user is logged in, click on their name on the right end
of the menu bar, and select yourself to switch-to. You will be
prompted for your password.

Also, if you’d like to get the fast user switching effect without having to enable it, such as if you are the only user of your computer, then there are a handful of dashboard widgets and probably some standalone apps that do the trick. I prefer the widget “Locker” which is a little lock icon that sits in your dashboard, when double clicked, it gives you a fast-user-switching-esque rotating desktop effect and takes you to the standard login screen. That’s all. I hope this is of some help.

I have a 13″ Macbook Pro. Its amazing that we have to resort to these tricks to lock the screen of after this many years of OSX. Something other OSes do out of the box. I guess Steve Jobs reckon Mac security is so unimportant that you don’t even need to lock the screen!

i have purchased a second computer to use when not at the office – had Log me in installed so i can access my mac from away. Problem is – if i log off my mac or put to sleep, i am not able to access via logmein. The only way to do this is to leave the computer on which I obviously don’t want to do when I am away from the office.
Any suggestions.

i have purchased a second computer to use when not at the office – had Log me in installed so i can access my mac from away. Problem is – if i log off my mac or put to sleep, i am not able to access via logmein. The only way to do this is to leave the computer on which I obviously don’t want to do when I am away from the office.
Any suggestions.

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The most frustrating thin in the world was not knowing how to lock my MAC. Thanks for the info…I have my mac on my computer cart in the middle of my cubicle and always afraid that one day I’m going to come back from lunch and have it accesses from one of my co-workers.

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